During the Residential panel held at CEDER 2024, moderator Claudiu Bisnel, Managing Partner at Brisk Group, started the discussion by asking the panelists what they considered to be essential ingredients for successful residential development. Many of the answers showed the participants’ consensus that mixed-use projects were key in today’s market environment.
Jan Demeyere, Architect and Co-Founder of Speedwell, explained that a mixed-use project means more than one might think. “I am a strong believer in everything that’s mixed. (…) If we talk about mixed, we talk about mix of functions, we talk about mix of typology of buildings, we talk about also a mix of people (…). We talk about the mix of public areas, green areas, areas that are more closed, more open, more private. So doing a mixed project is quite difficult and you need scale.” He went on to explain that historically, especially in Eastern Europe, urban planning used to mean creating separate areas for residential, leisure or public functions, a concept which created a lot of traffic at certain hours of the day, and some dead areas. “So, the nice thing about mixed is that you can pull it all together in a small location. It’s very clear that you can create a community.”
Luciana Giurea, Head of the Residential Division at AFI Europe Romania affirmed: “I would say that, not only for residential, but I believe for everything that is real estate today, (…) mixed-use projects are definitely best to have.” She continued by presenting the company’s upcoming project, AFI Home North, which aims to offer quality housing in the middle of the Bucharest business area. “We believe, and studies are showing that it’s highly important for the well-being of everyone, (…) to have the place where they live, where they work, where they shop, be in the vicinity.”
To complement this opinion, Alex Skouras, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Alesonor, shared his view that it is essential to listen to the market and ask about the end users’ needs: “We have talked to more than 10,000 families, for instance, with our last project, Amber Forest. And I do believe that the answer to this question is clearly a mixed-use project, a project that is able to (…) combine residential, which is where our focus is, (…) but [at] the same time addressing the needs of the end user, of the family, the educational needs, (…) the health needs, (…) the sports needs.”
Andreea Ciobanu, Chief Marketing Officer with Hagag Development Europe, also spoke about their company’s mixed-use projects, and how they tried to combine uses in a fluid way, not only in new developments, but also in modernized properties. Talking about their project, H Pipera Lake, which she said is “mixed-use by definition” she explained that the surface of the complex allowed for the design to include parks and “multiple functions from retail, a beauty salon and other kind of services, also with separate access paths”, in order to not overcrowd the area.
